My New Forest Woodpecker Tale.

Welcome to my New Forest Life Tales Issue #003 June 2010 - "Look out for tumbling baby woodpeckers".

It has been ages since I last added a New Forest tale to my ezine list but from now on they will be published for you every month - thank you for your patience, and here is my June 2010 one.

Sometimes you go through life and a really special "nature event" happens. I've always really respected nature in all its forms, but this little tale was wonderful from so many different perspectives.

I was walking along a tree lined path on the New Forest with my wonderful dog by my side (as usual). The path was grassy and quite soft and spongy. It was a still and beautiful early evening around this time of year. I could hear and then see a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker parent in the trees - she had 4 fledglings, each in a separate tree and she was flying between each tree, feeding and encouraging them to fly and try out their wings.

We (my lovely dog Tia and myself) both looked up and took in this wonderful scene for a few minutes.

As we moved on along the path, to our left there was suddenly a "Whoooooooooosh" "Thump!" sound. Tia and I looked around. We couldn't see what had made the noise but it was quite loud and we were both perplexed - where had it come from?

I then looked at the base of the tree we were beside and there, all hunched up, was a baby fledgling woodpecker! He looked up at us and we stared down at him - he had appeared out of nowhere - actually he'd fallen out of the tree - poor little mite.

I didn't want to frighten him, but I also couldn't see how he hadn't broken both his legs. We stepped back and he hobbled around the tree away from us. Miraculously he seemed unharmed.

He got to the base of the next tree and proceeded to really gingerly hop and climb up it. Have you seen a woodpecker climb a tree? - it's usually quite a swift, fluid movement. This was painstaking in its slowness and lack of grace!

It looked like it would take an age, so Tia and I sat down on an old log, out of the way, just to observe. Eventually, he made it to the top of the quite high tree. The tree was forked at the top and he swayed about a bit on the very top and looked over to us.

We were so thrilled he'd made it and were just going to continue our walk when he did a final hop! - no more tree left - and guess what? down he tumbled again.

The main rule of nature is leave wildlife alone to sort themselves out if at all possible. That's what we did, we sat back down on the log and waited for the poor little chap to repeat the process.

We could hear mum being very concerned. She was by now flying past, giving squawks of encouragement. What seemed like hours later he again made it to the top, but this time stayed safely in the middle of the forked branches and was rewarded with a nice meal from mum.

We set off home happy, but out for much longer than we thought we'd be, feeling we had witnessed and shared a really special moment with a new woodpecker family.

I hope you have enjoyed this insight into what my life is like and all its special moments, living in this beautiful New Forest UK National Park.

There are loads of pictures of my life in this UK National Park throughout www.newforest-life.com I really hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for subscribing to this ezine and I hope we can share many more together in the future as I tell you more of my New Forest tales.